Dubai: Second seeds Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi beat Mahesh Bhupathi and Denis Istomin 7-5, 6-7, 10-7 in the quarter-finals of the doubles at the Dubai Duty Men’s Open at Dubai Tennis Stadium on Thursday.
The Indo-Pak Express, as they are more commonly known, will now face Tomasz Bednarek and Lukas Dlouhy in Friday’s semi-final after the latter pair overcame Lukas Rosol and Andreas Seppi 7-6(4), 7-6(5) on Wednesday.
In Thursday’s other quarter-final, No.1 seeds Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic beat Roberto Bautista-Agut and Igor Sijsling 6-3, 6-2.
Nestor and Zimonjic will now play Daniel Brands and Florian Mayer in Friday’s other semi-final.
Brands and Mayer were handed a walkover after Radek Stepanek’s partner Juan Martin del Potro retired from his earlier first-round singles match against Somdev Devverman with a wrist injury.
Nestor and Zimonjic remain the favourites for the tournament having won the Wimbledon doubles in 2008 and 2009 and the French Open doubles in 2010.
Nestor also won the Dubai Men’s Open doubles in 2002 alongside Mark Knowles, while Zimonjic triumphed here in 2007 with partner Fabrice Santoro.
Bopanna and Qureshi also pose a threat, however, having finished runners-up at the US Open doubles together in 2010. Bopanna also won the doubles at the Dubai event in 2012 alongside Mahesh Bhupathi.
